Nikol Pashinyan has a curious way of leaving a marriage. Armenia's prime minister will not file for divorce from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Kremlin-led security bloc that binds together Russia and five of its neighbours. Instead, he tells parliament he would be delighted if his partner threw him out. "I would be very happy if the organisation made a decision to expel Armenia," he said on August 27th, presenting his government's programme for 2026-2031, a document in which the CSTO does not merit a single mention. It is, in diplomatic terms, the equivalent of leaving one's socks on the floor and waiting to be told to move out.

Perhaps a strong strategy. By declining to use the withdrawal clause enshrined in his country’s Constitution, Mr Pashinyan has managed to distance himself from taking on any of the political and legal responsibility for tearing apart a security structure that has been the cornerstone of Armenia’s national defense doctrine for decades. This is where the bureaucracy comes into play, as the CSTO itself provides an elegant way out via the organization’s own machinery, which reports that Armenia has been in arrears with its payments to the alliance for two years running, and that the CSTO’s secretary-general, Taalatbek Masadykov,........

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